Backdrops in mame2003-plus

UDb23

GORF
Interesting & fun stuff
On the Astro Battles screen, the last two invaders can be slowed down to a crawl if you fire like crazy.

On the Laser Attack screen, if you shoot all the enemy ships except for the laser shooters, you can sit forever on the far left hand side of the screen. There were two ROM versions, and this trick only works on the first version.

GORF is actually an acronym for Galactic Orbiting Robot Force according to an early flyer.
"Gorf was in fact named for "frog" backwards, but why? "Frog" was Jay Fenton's nickname (developer).

Gorf was originally intended to be a tie-in with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but when the game designers read the film's script, they realized that the concept would not work as a video game. The player's ship resembles the Starship Enterprise.

Riverstorm

@UDb23 - Your source looks a bit more detailed. Did you happen to have a chance to test Sky Diver player 2? I think that would be such a great game for a two player game session. I've come close to completing the word SKY DIVER but when they put the landing pad on the opposite edge of the screen of where the plane is coming from it's darn near impossible to land. The longer you free fall the higher your score but I haven't figured out the trick to landing on the sides of the screen when the wind is blowing from the same side.

I think the fun facts are great little Easter eggs.

UDb23

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

Did you happen to have a chance to test Sky Diver player 2?

Not yet, got no time today but tomorrow morning surely; it's saturday :-)
I like that game too.

UDb23

@Riverstorm , @Clyde
Received my micro PC today (not tested yet).
FYI: created a new thread for ideas/suggestions on OS/Launcher to use for emulation and HTPC.

Riverstorm

@UDb23 - Nice, looking forward to how far you can push it and what runs smoothly. I'm not sure why but lately I've been wanting to get into a much faster system to play a more current version of MAME. I have 0.205 but I think 0.206 is out. I keep it current so why not when a decent priced mini comes along but as you said I'll always have a spot for a Pi.

No hurry on the game, I am not quite as active on the weekends as I try and spend time with family. I am hoping to get some feedback as my current image is pretty beat up and littered but if you experience the same input issues and "odd" player 2 point values then I'll hold out a bit before rebuilding.

btw, I did pickup a copy of Isolation for $8 US. I like to play it through a few times to get a good feel and see what sticks and will let you know.

UDb23

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

btw, I did pickup a copy of Isolation for $8 US. I like to play it through a few times to get a good feel and see what sticks and will let you know.

Nice! Won't tell you anything about my favorite songs to avoid influencing you. ;-)
Curious to know your later on.

UDb23

@Riverstorm Just played Skydiver with two gamepads (Xbox360 and ibuffalo classic).
Could not notice any strange behavior for Player 2; jump and parachute open buttons work correctly.
Must recheck for p2 scoring, it seemed ok.
I also swapped the 2 controllers to see if anything changed: still both players working ok.
Maybe it’s controller related in your case ? I imagine you already checked romset.

Clyde

@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

Received my micro PC today (not tested yet).

Congratulations!

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

I'm not sure why but lately I've been wanting to get into a much faster system to play a more current version of MAME. I have 0.205 but I think 0.206 is out. I keep it current so why not when a decent priced mini comes along but as you said I'll always have a spot for a Pi.

I'm too lazy to update my MAME 0.185 installation from the end of 2016 which I invested much time and effort in. Since I built my upright cabinet running a Pi 3B, my interest has shifted from "the best MAME there is currently" to get the most out of this little fella.

That said, one of my mid-term projects is to get https://github.com/libretro/mame (the lr version of the current MAME) running on my MSI Cubi 3 Silent. But other projects and real life things & people keep getting in the way. ;)

Riverstorm

@UDb23 - Thanks for testing it. Typically when I test I use a keyboard and one controller. I spent a bunch of time yesterday deleting all the cfg files and looking at my RA config but I still couldn't get it working properly.

Then I updated everything current and it still wouldn't work.

Long story short I decided to use two controllers and it worked. From what I can tell if you use a "keyboard" for player 2 it seems jump and deploy the chute simultaneously. So people with 2 player cabs, the 2nd player might not work correctly. It seems buttons 1 and 2 are tied together. It didn't matter which button I pressed as either would do both actions at the same time.

As for the score, it's based on how long you free fall before the chute deploys and since the jump and deploy chute are tied together there's never a freefall so the score is 0 or if there's a few milliseconds of lag maybe 30 points or so.

When you get a chance would you be willing to test player 2 with a keyboard just to verify it is a bug?

@Clyde - It's been years since I had a full MAME setup until the Pi brought some interest back in it's perfect little package. :) I've been updating official MAME since the release of Donkey Kong just out of habit of keeping current. With everything it's 500 to 600GB or something astronomical.

People keep getting in the way? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

UDb23

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

When you get a chance would you be willing to test player 2 with a keyboard just to verify it is a bug?

Sure, will let you know.

Riverstorm

@UDb23 - I appreciate it. I know you were talking of updating the Sky Diver BD to HD so I figured you had it loaded too.

Gorf really looks great in HD. Incredible job working around the limitations. When I apply a shader it applies to the lighted buttons too which is fine. I got a little better understanding looking through the zips. I wish that was on another layer but it's just incredible how much better it looks in full HD. Really nice job.

UDb23

@Riverstorm said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:
Glad you appreciate my efforts :-)

Sky Diver BD to HD so I figured you had it loaded too.

Not yet, but I think I found a way to use same approach as Gorf to SkyDiver.
Letter's contour must be part of the RA overlay, keeping the internal part transparent.
Mame artwork will then just be used to display internal letter colors that simulate lighting.
To get HD quality I need to convert the SKYDIVER text in vectors (not a big issue but take some time to clean up).

About 2nd player issue: do you use default mame keys for 2nd player on the keyboard?

Riverstorm

@UDb23 said in Backdrops in mame2003-plus:

About 2nd player issue: do you use default mame keys for 2nd player on the keyboard?

Yeah I deleted all my cfg files for troubleshooting so the default.cfg and skydiver.cfg files are created new. The default buttons for player 2 are a and s I believe for jump and and deploy chute on the keyboard.

grant2258

use game focus mode you probably have conflicts

Riverstorm

@grant2258 - Thanks, that seems to be the issue. I see what's happening now and I'll have to rethink the Retroarch and MAME mappings.

grant2258

not really if you set mame input to retropad and you have everything mapped in you ra config file there will be no conflicts as long as you have a hotkey set this way mame will ignore the keyboard requests all togther(everything you map in ra maps to a retropad function). This is more for an ipac setup though tbh but it can apply to a normal keyboard as well. The only way to disable the (ra retropad keyboard bindings) is keyboard only or game focus mode.

Riverstorm

@grant2258 - That sounds perfect but right now I have MAME TAB P2 Button 1 mapped to "a" and RA input_player2_a = "a". Also MAME TAB P2 Button 2 mapped to "s" and RA input_player2_b = "s" but they don't align hence the issue. Do you have the RA to MAME mappings so I can verify my inputs are matched correctly?

Riverstorm

It seems the RA A and B are flipped with MAME 1 and 2 so the inverse inputs are sending both button presses simultaneously which explains why either button works for both actions.

I use the TAB advanced functionality for single stick tank stick mappings which require NOT inputs. I would hate to loose the ability to play those games by going Retropad only as there's some classics.

grant2258

the problem is when you setup your joypad on a xbox360 a is marked button b on the controller thats probably causing the confusion.

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/RetroArch-Configuration/

your problem comes from using sim mode you keyboard and retropad dont match up.

Either forget mame input setting for the keyboad and use input = retropad that way it will only use what you binded to the retropad keys

or just use game focus mode this will unbind your retropad setting you made in ra.

you cant use kb only because you want to use a controller as well

another solution is dont map any retropad keyboard setting in ra for mame core only as it reads the keyboard itself and you can set it in the tab menu if the default isint right for you

Riverstorm

@grant2258 - Thanks for the suggestions. Yeah there's definitely more than one way to fix this issue as I thought about it last night. RA as complex as it can be at times provides a slew of flexibility. I definitely use a real stick for some games and analog on a controller is fantastic for others. I love how well Outrun plays now.

I can think of 3 or 4 ideas if you include focus mode but I hope to avoid that option as not to confuse the average gamer that just wants to come over and play games. That way they don't need to press a key every time they start the core.

The option that appeals to me right now is setting core or system (to cover all MAME cores) level RA keyboard inputs to 'NUL' and using TAB to keep single stick mappings for tank games like Vindicators, Ultra Tank, etc.